Hunting for the Next 4DX

Good morning,

Welcome to today’s edition of The Armchair Analyst, a 5-minute daily update on the ASX life-sciences sector.

Identifying what macro theme is "in" for biotech companies can be tricky.

Commodities investors can always point to the price for gold…

… but there is no market price for heart attacks.

For a biotech thematic to emerge, there needs to be a stock that runs so hard that it spurs a hunt for “The Next [XXX]”.

(where [XXX] is a stock that has made lots of investors' money)

The next company on my Biotech 165 Challenge is looking to become The Next 4DX…

Company #10 of 165 EchoIQ (ASX: EIQ)

But first…

OncoSil (ASX: OSL | MC: $16M) completes the last patient, last visit for its TRIPP-FFX clinical trial evaluating its medical device for assisting pancreatic cancer treatment. (OSL)

Rhythm Biosciences (ASX: RHY | MC: $45M) secures a strategic partnership with CancerIQ, a US digital oncology platform, to distribute its geneType cancer risk assessment. (RHY) 

Patrys (ASX: PAB | MC: $10M) completes the acquisition of Reliis, whose lead program is an injectable formulation for delirium in intensive care. (PAB)

Mesoblast (ASX: MSB | MC: $3.5B) Ryoncil product shows an 84% survival rate in real-world pediatric patients with steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease. (MSB)

Deep Dive: New rules strengthen China’s role as a fast, regulated hub for first-in-human cell and gene therapy trials. (Bio Century)

🪑Some interesting commentary from the Bio Century team in its latest podcast about these rules. 

Main takeaway: China will be a hub for faster proof-of-concept human trials for cell and gene therapies, and expect more M&A from Western countries in the region.

How does this affect a company like AdAlta (ASX:1AD | MC: $11.5M), East to West strategy? Not sure just yet, it may create more competition for assets, but also an opportunity. Let’s see how it plays out.

A swarm of 4C reports have come in today - I’m not going to go through all of them, just the ones that stood out to me:

Emyria (ASX: EMD | MC: $46M) secured $892K in revenue from its psychedelic clinical services revenue. $10.5M in the bank. (EMD)

🪑 Emyria is my largest personal position, so I’ve been waiting for this quarterly report to see how its scale-up activities are tracking. About six months ago, EMD signed a deal with Medibank to fund its psychedelic-assisted treatments for PTSD and treatment-resistant depression.

EMD has increased from 4 to 50 funded dosing days per week capacity in a very short period of time. Soon growing to 70 by mid-year with the launch of the Victorian clinic.

Each dosing day represents ~$10,000.

EMD is continuing to train clinicians and develop authorised prescribers of psychedelic medicine.

It will take some time for full-scale-up, but the company has the cash runway to get there.

I was listening to a podcast this morning talking about the future of the psychedelic medical industry in the US at the 11-minute mark. If you’re an EMD investor, I would recommend giving it a listen:

Algorae Therapeutics (ASX: 1AI | MC: $37M) delivered another quarter of prudent cash management as it prepares the company for the next phase. Just $220K in cash outflows, $1.9M in the bank (1AI)

First quarterly report for Epiminder (ASX: EPI | MC: $154M) since its IPO last year. Some big 1-off cash outflows totalling ~$25M to cover the IPO and historical R&D claims. (EPI)

IPO cash positions can be a bit tricky to read due to the outstanding listing costs, but the ~$92M in cash remaining is a much more accurate indication of the company’s runway to deliver on R&D for its epilepsy monitoring tech. 

UK and US biotech investor Epidarex raises US$145M for fourth biotech fund. (Endpoints News)

Healthier Capital launches US$220 million Healthtech Venture Fund. (WSJ)

AnswersNow just raised US$40M in Series B funding to scale an AI-enabled virtual autism therapy. (MedCity News)

🪑While no valuation was announced in the raise, my thoughts immediately turned to ASX-listed BlinkLabs (ASX: BB1), developing its own AI-enabled software to detect and potentially diagnose autism.

Belgian biopharma UCB has announced a £500M capital boost from the UK government’s Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF), to support its ongoing investment in R&D in the country. (The Pharma Letter)

Mirum Pharmaceuticals completes the acquisition of Bluejay Therapeutics, adding its chronic hepatitis delta virus drug to its pipeline, for a total of US$270M. (BioSpace)

I was chatting with a healthcare analyst last week about the state of the markets, and what could be “in” for 2026…

He said that after the success of 4D Medical (ASX: 4DX) in 2025, institutional investors are now picking over every other medical imaging company to find out what they had missed.

“The Next [XXX]” trade helps investors understand what types of companies can succeed, and contextualise smaller, earlier-stage investments.

(where [XXX] is the name of a stock that has recently run)

In other industries, this looks like…

The “Next Nvidia”... in AI

The “Next De Grey”... in Mining

The “Next Afterpay”...  in fintech

But what I’ve found in biotechs is that following macro trends can be a lot more challenging.

There is a market price for gold.

… But there is no market price for heart attacks.

So, for a biotech thematic to emerge, there needs to be a stock that runs so hard that it becomes “The Next [XXX]”... validating a wave of attention, smaller “lookalike” companies.

In this two-part series, I will look at two stocks that could be “The Next [XXX]” from two high performers in 2025.

Today, it is all about finding The Next 4DX… 

4DX is an AI medical imaging company that was one of the best-performing stocks of 2025.

Earlier in 2025, 4DX had completed a ‘crunch raise’ ($0.425 with a 1:1 option and a piggyback to boot).

A raise that was heavily backed by retail investors and snubbed by the instos.

Several months later, the company made three key announcements:

These three announcements together set off a cascade of buying, followed up by multiple new hospital deals to drive home the momentum.

After being capped at ~$150 million in June at a ~20 cent, 4DX managed to top out at a $2.3 billion valuation and just completed a $150 million raise this month.

With such a raging success in a short period of time, the natural question was: where is the next 4DX?

One company has moved into the 4DX slipstream.

It’s been running hard since the start of January on essentially no news…

That company?

EchoIQ (ASX: EIQ) 

What’s the story?

EIQ has developed an AI algorithm designed to help cardiologists detect structural heart disease faster, earlier, and more accurately.

Right now, structural heart disease still relies on a trained cardiologist interpreting a grainy, black-and-white 2D ultrasound of a beating heart….

While there are highly skilled professionals who can read this echogram, it is an imperfect image, so a lot can get missed.

Enter AI.

EIQ has built an AI algorithm based on the world's largest proprietary dataset of labelled echocardiograms (heart images)…

With results from its pivotal study showing 99.5% Sensitivity and 91.0% Specificity in detecting heart failure.

EIQ has already got FDA clearance for Aortic Stenosis (a smaller heart disease) and has submitted for FDA clearance for a heart failure product in a larger market.

The story between EIQ and 4DX is very similar.

For several years, before 4DX’s big share price run, it had an FDA-approved product in the market.

But it wasn’t the flagship product, and revenues were relatively small. 

However, once 4DX’s flagship CT: VQ medical imaging product was approved, the market began to realise just how valuable the opportunity was.

EIQ is in a very similar position.

Right now, EIQ has an FDA-approved AI product on the market for Aortic Stenosis.

However, because it was the first company to create such a product, it had to break new ground to get the product into hospitals, secure a reimbursement code… 

(basically a bunch of stuff that made the sales process slow)

The market rated them accordingly.

But if EIQ can secure FDA clearance for its second flagship product, the market may start to catch on to the scope of the opportunity - just like they did with 4DX.

EIQ has already submitted its application to the FDA, and a decision is expected in the next few months.

With FDA approval for its flagship product, EIQ can go on to tackle the heart failure market… a much larger market that costs the US healthcare system US$70 billion each year.

So will EIQ be The Next 4DX? 

I’m not sure, I’m just The Armchair Analyst

But provided that FDA clear the product for sale (and there is always a risk that this decision is delayed or denied), then EIQ will be armed with its flagship product to execute on its sales goals.

This supports the company's main risk as it transitions from a pre-approved device technology to a sales, execution, and scale-up play.

A big thank you to EIQ Chairman Anthony Grover and Deon Strydom, Chief Commercial Officer, for taking me through the story.

See you all tomorrow.

The Armchair Analyst

PS. I was just on an episode of the Shares for Beginners Podcast. Big thanks to Phil Muscatello for having me on: